When Baba Ramdev started his Patanjali brand of products, there was a torrent of outrageous ridicule hurled at him! Sexist memes like “Now it is not just half naked women but even half naked men can endorse products” were virulently doing the rounds. Then there were and still are many videos circulating how fraudulently the desi brand had managed to climb up the market ladders so quickly when other multinationals had taken years to do the same, but the fact is that even before Patanjali became a 5000crore business house which is only growing by leaps and bounds with each passing day, baba Ramdev was and is an acclaimed Yoga guru that made his business debut so enormously big in a short time!
The vehement stand of Baba Ramdev towards promoting of indigenous Indian methods and his Make in India encashment through his massive outreach programs with a growing popularity with millions of fan following despite being an ordinary saffron clad Yoga maestro was what perhaps that had not gone too well within the multinational bigwigs and the elitist fraternity and the rational players, who seem to be aversely rigid to come to terms that a saffron clad Yoga guru who dares to flaunt Hindutva on his sleeves could emerge as a hard headed business man who could take on the multinationals and challenge them on the chin.
And in the current context of announcement of Yogi Adityanath as UP’s CM, it is the same averse rigidity or assumed ashamedness for anything symbolically native that makes the media houses and their consumers go red in the face and often resort to use of words like ‘fringe’ and ‘radical Hindutvawadi’ where the achievements and conviction of an individual is weighed down by the color of one’s clothes! It is irrelevant if a Yogi Adityanath, a five time MP has attended 80% of parliament sessions, asked 250 or more questions on various important aspects, it is impertinent if he has worked very hard for his constituency, it is absolutely abhorrent if he questions the blatant communal politics of Akhilesh Yadavs and Mayavatis, it is despicable polarization and below the belt attack if he reconverts thousands of converted Christians back to Hinduism, it is bigotry to object to Mullah appeasement and it is a total sham to even raise your head and counter the polarizing language of your opponent because we are struck in the serendipity of secularism where the Mullah is sacrosanct and all else are subservient! And unacceptability has unsettled many as a saffron clad sadhu has taken over! After all isn’t India a land of superstitious snake charmers and saffron clad cannibalistic babas who shall devour you alive as portrayed by the west! And it must now be quite obnoxious that these very saffronists are making political pitches and building native narratives, that too so overwhelmingly!
While paedophilia in a church may not be a prime-time news debate or even worthy of a debate at all but Hindu gurus make for good fodder as fraudulent womanizers as has been the larger construct of the media. Not that there has never been fraud committed on the shoulders of spirituality, neither is this about blatantly defending the overt jingoism of Hindutvawad but about the concurrence of the fact that it’s time we respected home grown leaders from the grounds and not always look up to imitating the west and it is time we realized the gravity of the prevalent demographic meddling that could harm the nation at large than living in a secular trance.
Yogi Adityanath might be known for his Hindutvawad but he certainly would know the austerity of administrative responsibilities where equal opportunities and equal rights for all cannot be compromised and certainly his priorities would revolve around taking control of the puncture in the law and order system as Uttar Pradesh has been reeling in a stench of lawlessness and corrupt votebank appeasing bigotry.
And for all that misadministration by the cycle wallahs it certainly takes only a firebrand leader with resolute decision making skills to take control of the disarray that Uttar Pradesh is currently in and the color of one’s clothes is certainly no parameter to judge one’s administrative acumen! Until then we shall sit back and watch the Saffron saga!
